


Turn Off the Lights

by klowee



Category: Pitch Perfect (2012)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:46:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klowee/pseuds/klowee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, Chloe feels like dancing in her new city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn Off the Lights

Chloe Beale likes it when she can still smell her shampoo after leaving the house. Tonight, her red wavy hair is doing as she asks it, her tummy is feeling tight and she’s owning it when she walks into this bar togged in a loose long crop top and her favourite pair of cigarette pants.

She’s new to the city and doesn’t know anyone.  It’s been a lonely couple of weeks but she’s been adjusting. She’s started a new job she thinks she likes and usually fills her evenings with fixing up her apartment and skype dates with her best friend Aubrey.

But tonight, she feels like dancing. Though she is semi-self-conscious rolling into a place like this alone, she takes a strange comfort in the fact that no one knows her and she could be anyone she’d like to be.

Aubrey insisted she bring her Barden rape whistle if she actually went out on her own, so it's shoved in the bottom of her clutch beneath her keys, dollars and ID.

When she gets to the bar and puts in her order — this leggy brunette adds Chloe’s drink to her tab.  She accepts the Stella and clinks the top of her green bottle with the girl’s rocks glass.

“My name’s Stacie,” the girl winks.

“I’m Chloe,” she takes a sip of her beer and tips it towards the new acquaintance, “Thanks.”

“I manage this bar,” Stacie says, “Have a good night.  You look great.”

Stacie gives her a wink and heads towards the back.    Chloe makes her way towards the dance floor, bopping her head to the sweet beats of the song.  There are a few people that dance around her smiling and inviting her to shake her tail with them — and she half-heartedly accepts. 

She starts getting really into a song when she glances over to the side of the room where she spots a tiny brunette wearing giant headphones.  She’s moving her head to an entirely different beat than what’s booming in the bar and she has a bottle of Evian in front of her.

It takes her three bars to subtly dance her way in the direction of the curious stranger. By the end of the song, she’s standing in front of the slouched girl with black eyeliner who seems to be focused on her iPhone.

Chloe stands there, directly in front of this girl, for several moments and goes unnoticed.  It occurs to her that she’s not quite sure what she wants to say yet and has just turned away when she hears a voice.  So, she spins back around.

“Hi?” these wide eyes are looking up at her and this small girl pulls her headphones down to her shoulders.

“Hi,” Chloe smiles, and for the first time since she walked into this place, feels a little nervous and self-conscious, “I was going to ask you what you were listening to.”

“But you’re not going to anymore?”

Chloe is caught by surprise and this petite girl looks like a cross between a cute woodland creature and a sexy badass as she quirks her brow at her — looking nothing less than amused.

“You don’t like what’s playing out here?” the red head asks as she fidgets, pulling all her hair to the right side of her head.

“Nah,” the girl grins and taps the side of her sound cup, “This is better.”

“Oh yeah?” Chloe matches the grin and slides into the banquette seat, next to the mysterious musical stranger.

After an exaggerated eye-roll, the brunette dramatizes her reluctance to detach herself from her headphones and hands them over.  As Chloe is about to cover her ears, the girl grips her wrists.

“Wait,” the girl pulls out the iPod source and restarts the song, “It’s better from the beginning.”

Chloe’s mouth just drops. The other girl starts to laugh at the exaggerated expression before she watches the red head start to move in her seat next to her.

When the song ends, instead of taking off the headphones, she slides them down around her neck.  This doesn’t go unnoticed by the brunette.

“What was that?”

Suddenly, the grin subtly transforms into a shy smile and the badassness melts a little leaving a lot of cute left over.

“Wait, is that _yours_?”  Chloe maintains eye contact generating this energy until the girl’s grinning again and breaks it.

“Kind of,” The girl admits, “I mean, I didn’t write the songs — I just mixed them.”

“That sounds amazing,” Chloe says so honestly as she kind of stares at this stranger in awe — she doesn’t even notice the familiar leggy brunette approach the table.

“You’re up, Beca,” Stacie offers her hand and pulls the brunette out from her seat.

Chloe starts to scramble with the headphones around her neck when Beca bends over the table and calmly reaches down and covers her hand with her own, “My first set isn’t too long — just don’t run off with them and I’ll come get them from you after.”

“Luke’s set is almost over,” Stacie says with a smirk and slings Beca’s bag around her shoulder and starts to walk off.

“Hey,” Beca says to the redhead; she hasn’t moved from her position at all, “What’s your name?  Y’know, so I know who to report if you do take off with my —“

“Chloe.”

“I’ll come find you in a little bit.”

Chloe thinks she may have winked — but before she has time to process, Beca has made her way towards the DJ booth.

There’s a smooth musical transition before this wicked sound starts to fill the room and Chloe, without a doubt, knows who’s generating it.  Because there, in the booth, is that little brunette with another set of headphones wrapped around her head.

“Beca,” she says to herself as she gets up and heads back to the dance floor. 

 

Chloe is dancing like she means it, which is why she came out tonight to begin with.  What she didn’t expect was all the attention she’s getting from bodies attempting to dance up on her.

She spends a good portion of the set watching as the DJ bobs her head so precisely with the beats. She’s not even fully dancing, but Chloe is so captivated by the way she moves — enjoying the smooth, rigid rhythm.

The music changes and the brunette’s making her way through the now very crowded room.  A few people who recognize her as the DJ stop her as she comes towards the still dancing blur of red hair.

When Chloe spots Beca — who is so much smaller standing up — she puts the headphones on, smiles at the DJ, before making her way back over to a table on the side of the dance floor.

“I want more before I give these back,” she says as she points to the headphones while the small girl takes a seat next to her.

“You just heard an entire set,” Beca laughs, but Chloe starts to pout.

“This,” Chloe puts both hands on each side of the earphones, “Is better than what’s playing out here _now_ …”

“I have a song you might like,” the DJ reaches for her iPod before finding the song she plans to share.

“You’re kind of good, eh?”

Beca shrugs.

“Okay, fine.  You _are_ good.  But you know that,” Chloe’s eyes are bright and blue in this dark bar and the slouching, bored girl sitting off to the side earlier is practicing decent posture and is totally entertained now.

“Thanks,” Beca says quietly and Chloe starts to slides the headphones to her shoulders again.

“My ears are so glad I bugged you,” the red head smiles and rests her hand on the DJ’s knee, “You make awesome music.”

See, Chloe isn’t the kind of person Beca would typically gravitate towards.  She’s bright, outgoing, _beautiful_ — she’s one of those girls that Beca doesn’t usually find herself talking to.  So, when she’d come over to initiate conversation — Beca was kind of thrown.

But here she is, leaning her ear towards the headphone and is so genuinely enjoying her mixes. Beca can’t help but feel something she can’t quite put her finger on that’s stirring in the pit of her belly — something that pleasantly aches whenever she feels those blue eyes on her. Something that feels kind of intense when she actually lets eye contact happen.

That being said, she looks up and finds sparkling blue eyes looking to meet her own — and she feels heat take over her face as she bites her lip. Chloe’s hand is still on her knee and she becomes _very_ aware when she gives it a squeeze.

“You’re a cool chick,” it just sort of comes out of Beca’s mouth.

The smile that receives makes Beca not want to start her next set — which, of course, has to start _soon_.  And, for the first time since forever, Beca almost wishes she didn’t have to get up and spin.

Almost.

Because she promises Chloe she’ll be back after.  The red head insists on keeping the headphones as collateral. The DJ accepts that.

She also accepts this really, _really_ quick kiss on the cheek. Like, if she didn’t feel her cheek tingling she wouldn’t be so sure it happened.

She’s never wanted to get through a set so fast. 

 

Eventually, the set ends and so does last call. Beca queues up the last few songs and watches in her peripheral as people stumble towards the exit.  But her real focus is on the dancing red head in the middle of the dance floor still dancing like the night has just begun — with her headphones still wrapped around her neck.

After the lights come on and the music stops, Beca finds Chloe.

“Hungry?”

A firm nod later, they’re out the door sniffing out some late night eats.

The two take their pizza and find a seat on a bench in the park nearby.

“So this is what 3AM tastes like in this city,” Chloe says after she swallows a bite.

“It’s good, eh?” Beca also swallows, “I go there after gigs sometimes.”

“How long have you been doing the DJ thing?”

“I moved out here two years ago and started spinning shortly after,” Beca shrugs, “I guess I was pretty lucky.”

“You’re lucky you were pretty talented,” Chloe winks.

Beca notes just how pretty this girl is sharing late night pizza with her.

“You are, y’know?”

“Yeah, I’m lucky,” Beca wears this satisfying smile, “I like it here.”

“You’re awesome,” the red head is also smiling. 

Chloe talks a little bit about work, a little about her best friend Aubrey in New York, she tells a story from university and offers an anecdote about the cat she had when she was small.

Her voice cracks and she coughs a little.  Beca reaches into her bag and offers her the Evian bottle she had from earlier.

“You were telling me about your penpal,” the DJ says between yawns, encouraging her to go on, “Beth, who is like 90 and you still write to.”

“I’ve been writing her for twelve years,” Chloe giggles as she watches the sleepy brunette fight to keep her head up, “Beca, how far do you live from here?”

She’s resting on her arm, bent over the back of the bench.  “That way,” Beca yawns.

“Well, I live two blocks away,” Chloe giggles in the pause, “Think you can make that?”

Soon enough, they’re in Chloe’s apartment. Beca takes a seat on the couch while the red head makes her way to the kitchen to grab a couple glasses of water.

By the time she returns, the brunette has completely passed out on her couch.  She leaves the water on her coffee table and grabs a comforter to place on top of her.

Chloe leans against the doorframe for a moment and admires the view of a peacefully sleeping DJ in her living room — before heading to the bathroom to wash up for bed and submit to sleep herself.

 

 

The next morning, Chloe goes back into the living room when she hears Beca stir.

“This is a nice apartment,” the brunette says as she rubs at her eyes and adjusts to the daylight. She sits up.

“Thanks,” Chloe says, wearing a bright blue robe and taking a seat next to the girl on her couch, “I guess I have a lot of time to work on it — y’know, with having no friends in the city and all.”

Beca stretches and smiles over at Chloe — who looks ridiculously good considering it’s Sunday morning — and who looks this good on Sunday morning?

“Well,” Beca says, “You have a friend now.”

Chloe does that thing with her blue eyes; they sparkle as they meet hers again. That feeling is back — but Beca doesn’t look away.  The last thing she sees is a smirk that creeps up on the redhead’s lips before her eyes are fluttering shut. With no warning at all, Chloe kisses her.  It’s sudden and slow and very, very welcomed.

“Yeah,” Chloe grins, “Kind of.”

 

 

END.


End file.
